The appointment ends the possibility of Musk mounting a takeover of Twitter, capping his ownership at 14.9% during his time on the board, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. He currently owns 9.2%. Twitter’s shares jumped 7% as the market opened in New York.
Musk is one of the biggest personalities on Twitter and has regularly run into trouble on the platform. He is currently seeking to exit a 2018 deal with the SEC that put controls in place related to his tweeting about Tesla. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a tweet that he’s “excited” about appointing Musk to the board. “He’s both a passionate believer and intense critic of the service which is exactly what we need on @Twitter, and in the boardroom, to make us stronger in the long-term.”to our board! Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.
“This was a friendly move by the Twitter board to embrace Musk with open arms as clearly a passive stake is just the start of his involvement in Twitter,” Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, wrote in a note to investors. “Musk joining Twitter will lead to a host of strategic initiatives which could include a range of near-term and long-term possibilities out of the gates for the company still struggling in a social media arms race.
Twitter was often mocked for appointing board members who rarely tweeted. Musk is rarely far from controversy on the platform. In 2019, he called a British cave diver a “pedo guy” on Twitter,